Metal working



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METAL WORKING Original Filed Sept. 9,' 1954 18 Sheets-Sheet 18 VVENTS um i Byt Wwf-vb( M United States Patent O 44 Claims. (Cl. 113-53) This invention relates to the art of metal working and, in particular, relates to apparatus for forming hollow articles from sheet metal blanks by methods such as those disclosed in the copending application of Claus L. Sporck entitled Methods for Working Sheet Metal, tiled January 29, 1954, and having Serial No. 407,010, now abandoned, and in our parent application 454,871 led September 9, 1954, entitled Metal Working of which latter the present application is a division.

The term hollow as used herein will be understood to apply to an article which is frusto-conical in shape, for example, an object similar in shape to a megaphone, and is meant to include an object which has -a generally hemispherical shape, such as a bowl or an article which isv in the shape of a horn or an object which is generally tubular' in shape. Further, the term will be understood to apply to an article, a section of which is shaped as above-mentioned. Also, it will be understood that the term sheet metal is inclusive of plate, and of ysheetor plate-like elements, even when formed as castings, forgings, Ivveldments or the like.

In general, the apparatus disclosed herein relates to the cold-working or flowing of metals by the use of a roller or rollers. -In the known art, certain machines comprise a rotatable spindle contoured to the shape of the object desired, a rotatable tail stock to clamp a iiat blank on the spindle, and a roller mounted on a suitable carriage. The carriage is so moved that the roller is brought up to the blank, and, while the iblank is rotating, the roller is moved along the spindle to ow or displace metal of the blank over the spindle and form the object. In most instances, such machines form conical-shaped larticles having straight sides; however, where the finished article requires a side contour, the machine m-ay be equipped with a tracer mechanism to make the roller move in the `desired direction.

In general, known machines were developed to meet the demands of industry for hollow articles such as television tubes, separator disks for milk machines, metal containers, and the like. The principal reason for forming such articles by cold-working with `a roller is to minimize the use of conventional metal-working operations, such as forging, machining, welding and particularly deep-drawing, which are time-consuming, wasteful of material and require special and expensive tooling. The time and cost factors are particularly characteristic of deep-drawing operations, where `a generally conical article may require a half a dozen draws with intervening annealing steps for its formation, whereas, by cold-working with a roller, the same article may be formed in a single pass of the roller along ya spindle. Furthermore, cold-working with a roller adds strength and hardness to an object which,v of course, is in direct contrast to deep-drawing.

The industrial demand for hollow articles which are inexpensive to manufacture, light in weight, and very strong is steadily increasing. The aircraft jet program, both military and commercial, has created a large demand for such parts an exhaust and tail cones. objects Vas explosive charge Shapers for projectiles and for open hearth and blast furnaces is increasing. IFurther, many stainless steel hollow articles are being used 4for shipping containers in the food processing and medical supply fields.

The use of conical "ice Presently available machines for cold-working with a roller are not adequate to produce hollow articles in a manner commensurate with mass production requirements for certain types of articles principally because of unsuitability for automatic operation and the inability to displace certain types and thicknesses of metal and metal alloys at high feed rates.

With the above in mind, we have developed Ia machine for cold-flowing by rollers, which is automatically operyatiye in the sense that an operator merely has to load and unload blanks and to press a button to start the machine through its various cycles of operation. The machine may be made fully :automatic by auxiliary loading and unloading equipment which incorporates means to initiate the cycling operation after a blank is loaded. The machine is capable of extremely high feed rates and can massproduce cold-worked articles from practically all of the various types of metals and alloys.

While the machine tool as disclosed herein is capable of automatically mass-producing articles of the ordinary type as mentioned, we have embodied into the machine certain concepts which enable the projection of cold-nowing techniques in areas hitherto thought impossible. In other words, our machine permits the rap-id and economical formation of objects which could not be produced by known cold-owing machines and in many instances could not be formed by slow and expensive conventional operations such Ias forging, deep-drawing and machining.

Furthermore, some of the concepts embodied in thek machine Iare quite suitable, either alone or in combination, for use in other types of machine tools `such as lathes, planers, and the like, even though they have exceptional, and in some instances, Iastonishing advantages and results in the iield of cold-ow-ing, for which field the machine disclosed herein is primarily intended.

Our machine, viewed in a general way, makes use of various known elements, such as spindle, tail stock, rollers mounted on a carriage, tracery mechanism and so on. However, in our machine these components have been improved, coordinated and made to function in ways heretofore unknown. By such novel modification, operation and cooperation of these components, and by the introduction of other new features, our machine functions largely or whollyV automatically and produces a wide variety of objects at very high rates.

For example, in our machine the spindle and the carriage, including the mechanism. for mounting the roller thereon, are so constructed that a blank can be worked at pressures approaching 30 tons even whileV rotating the 'blank' at speeds in the order of 2000 r.p.m. This has resulted in very high feed rates, for example, approaching 60 inches per minute.

The spindle incorporates a unique hydraulic thrust bearing which enables a blank to be worked at the abovementioned speeds and pressures. This bearing is a tremendous improvement over the ordinary roller-type anti-friction thrust bearings and, indeed, we known of no prior bearing capable of taking such loads while rotating at such speeds.

The carriage and the mechanism for mounting Vthe rollers thereon are constructed and arranged to be very light in weight yet capable of exerting the high pressures needed. The carriage is movable longitudinally over a bed and the rollers are movable transversely of the carriage. The arrangement of the bearings for accommodating such relative movements notonly takes upV the high thrusts developed, but provides for rolling type of sliding action, whereby to hold frictional forces to a minimum.

`In our machine the tail stock isconstructed as an integral part of the carriage, but is capable of relative' movement with respect thereto. Thus, the carriage and the tail stock can be quickly moved up toward a blank, the tail stock engaging the blank and clamping the same on the spindle, while the carriage continues to move forward while the rollers work the blank. This feature has contributed greatly to the automation of the machine because no delay is required for the tail stock to be adjusted to clamp the blank, and because there `is automatic compensation for any variation in the thickness of the blanks being run. In addition, the tail stock has a rotatable head supported by a unique hydraulic thrust bearing which permits high clamping pressure at the high rotational blank speeds as mentioned above.

The arrangement for supporting the templet used with the tracer mechanism of our machine plays an important part in automation. With tracer operation, it is necessary that the starting point of the tracer follower with respect to the templet always be correctly aligned with the starting point of the operating tool (rollers in this case), and this is particularly true where precision work is required. Variations in the thickness of the blanks used in cold flowing due to manufacturing tolerances may run as high as il% thickness, and such variations make the precision formation of objects impossible unless adjustment is made for the thickness of each blank. This, of course, would be intolerable where objects are to be mass-produced or a machine is to be automatic in the ordinary sense of the word. Our machine automatically provides for such compensation. This is done by making the templet movable with the rollers, but non-movable when the rollers have engaged a blank to start the working operation. The rollers and templet can be brought up to the blank as a unit and when the rollers are firm against the blank at starting position, the templet is locked on the bed. Since the templet is not xed until the rollers are in the starting position, variation in blank thickness has no effect on the accuracy of the object to be formed.

While the overall apparatus of the invention is capable of forming many diiferent types of hollow articles, it is ideally suited for the practice of methods for forming hollow articles having sides of tapering thickness, which we believey have never been made heretofore by coldworkingwith a roller. The taper may be uniform or nonuniform, and the direction of taper may be outwardly or inwardly with respect to the mouth of the article. According to the preferred manner, a blank is supported on a spindle which has a curved surface of revolution. The spindle and the blank are then rotated and the metal of the blank is axially displaced by making a-roller follow a curve which is identical to the curve of the spindle surface but axially displaced from the spindle curve by a distance equal to the original thickness of the blank.V By using a spindle having a curve defined by a formula which will be mentioned hereinafter, an article having sides of uniform taper may be formed.

The above referred to methods are particularly applicable for the formation of disk-type automobile wheels. Such wheels generally have a flat central portion which is apertured tov accommodate the wheel hub. The section of the disk around the central .portion is dished so as to provide the centering means for the brake drum and then the disk curves outwardly and has a rim attached to the outer periphery. It is highly desirable in automobile wheels that the outwardly curving portion have a decreasing taper and the above-described methods are ideally suitable for such wheels.

lViewed in an over-all or comprehensive Way, the invention contemplates the broad objective of working metallic blanks or the like into finished or semi-finished articles by a .procedure lwhich combines two or more of the characteristics of .high-speed owing or displacement of the material, high operating pressures so as to broaden the iield vof operation, exceptional accuracy of Work Vand/ or {inertess of product, and flexibility with respect to `the variety and size of articles to be made (including the production not only of tapered and related shapes of articles lbut also of `articles having tapering wall thicky ness, which may be varied as to direction, degree and character of taper); and the invention contemplates accomplishing the foregoing by a highly coordinated mechanism, largely or wholly automatic, wherein a number of valuable features are used in combination, including a plurality of the following: paired Working rollers are c0- ondiniated with each other :and with the other parts of fthe machine by `being individually mounted for three different lmovements of adjustment relative to the carriage, i

and also :being lautor'n-atically correlated relative to the workpiece on the spindle as they progress in their working path; xat the same time, for flexibility and simplicity of ladjustment, one roller when preliminarilyV adjusted m-ay be tixed in position while the other is adjusted relative thereto; the speed of roller movement lalong the working path and the speed of movement of the carriage carrying the rollers Kare coordinated to accommodate 'different rclsistances of the different workpieces, and the carriage speed is itself varied in a predetermined coordinated relation to different portions of the 'working cycle; for further accuracy, the tail stock which bears against the workpiece when it is Vpositioned at the spindle is in yielding engagement with lthe carriage and so also is the templet of the tracer mechanism, which latter is in turn automatically coordinated, along with the rollers, relative to the workpiece, regardless of variations in initial thickness of the piece; so also is the tracer mechanism finger coordinatable with the different rollers which may beV mounted on the carriage for producing different articles;

the blank is adjustably supported on the carriage, not only for yaccuracy of positioning relative to the spindle and ,tail stock but also for permitting utilization of widely differing blanks; the accuracy rof positioning and operationV of these and other parts is enhanced Iby a number of mechanical and hydraulic elements arranged to eliminate lost motion or backlash, including use of preloaded high- "capacity anti-friction bearings, between the bed and the n carriage, between the carriage and the roller supports,

and 'at other points, the introduction of a compound screw device with a lbal-ance of forces thereon in the motor driven adjustment of the working rollers, and the utilization of -a hydraulic system for operating and controlling many of the parts of the machine, thelbulk of sai-d system being closely integr-ated with the carriage so ,as not to be affected by the relative movement between the carriage yand the bed; and the utilization of the hy- Que of the objects of the invention is to provide a metal-working machine which is completely automatic in oper-ation, the only function of the operator ybeing to load .K and unload blanks and to press a button to initiate the automatic cycle yof operations.

Another .object of the invention is to provide a machine v tool which is capable of lforming hollow articles iat-very high feed rates, for example, sixty inches per minute.

Another object of the invention is to provide ya machine tool which is capable of working a blank at very high working or feeding pressures` and very high rotational speed, for example, to exert `a working thrust approaichthe ing thirty tons while rotating the blanket ya speed in order of two thousand rpm.

Another object ol' the invention is to provideiri -ak machine itool a bearing for a spindle which `comprises fa unique combina-tion of anti-friction ball or roller-bear- 

1. A MACHINE TOOL COMPRISING: AN ELONGATED BED; A HEAD STOCK CONNECTED WITH SAID BED AND HAVING MEANS FOR ROTATABLY MOUNTING A SPINDLE FOR SUPPORTING A BLANK TO BE WORKED; A CARRIAGE SLIDABLY MOUNTED ON SAID BED FOR MOVEMENT IN A DIRECTION GENERALLY PARALLEL TO THE ROTATIONAL AXIS OF SAID SPINDLE; FIRST FLUID PRESSURE MEANS INCLUDING A HYDRAULIC MOTOR AND A HYDRAULIC PUMP MOUNTED ON SAID CARRIAGE FOR MOVING SAID CARRIAGE ALONG SAID BED DURING THE WORKING OPERATION; TWO ROLLER SUPPORTS EACH SLIDABLY MOUNTED ON SAID CARRIAGE RESPECTIVELY ON OPPOSITE SIDES OF SAID AXIS FOR MOVEMENT IN OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS GENERALLY TRANSVERSE SAID AXIS; A PAIR OF ROLLERS RESPECTIVELY MOUNTED ON SAID SUPPORTS FOR ENGAGING AND WORKING SAID BLANK; SECOND FLUID PRESSURE MEANS INCLUDING A HYDRAULIC MOTOR AND A HYDRAULIC PUMP MOUNTED ON SAID CARRIAGE FOR MOVING SAID ROLLER SUPPORTS; A TEMPLET SUPPORT SLIDABLY MOUNTED ON SAID BED FOR MOVEMENT IN A DIRECTION GENERALLY PARALLEL SAID AXIS; MEANS FORMING A YIELDING INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN SAID TEMPLET SUPPORT AND SAID CARRIAGE AND PROVIDING ALTERNATIVELY FOR THE TEMPLET SUPPORT TO BE MOVABLE WITH SAID CARRIAGE OR NONMOVABLE WHILE SAID CARRIAGE IS MOVING DURING A WORKING OPERATION; SAID LAST MENTIONED MEANS COMPRISING MEANS CONNECTED WITH SAID BED TO ENGAGE SAID TEMPLATE SUPPORT AND RENDER THE SAME NON-MOVABLE WHEN SAID ROLLERS ENGAGE SAID BLANK AND MAINTAIN THE SUPPORT NON-MOVABLE DURING THE WORKING OPERATION; A SUPPORT MOUNTED ON SAID CARRIAGE TO POSITION A BLANK TO BE WORKED WITH RESPECT TO SAID AXIS; THIRD FLUID PRESSURE MEANS MOUNTED ON SAID CARRIAGE FOR OPERATING LAST SAID SUPPORT; A ROTATABLE TAIL STOCK FOR ENGAGING A BLANK ON THE SPINDLE AND MOUNTED ON SAID CARRIAGE; MEANS FORMING A YIELDING CONNECTION BETWEEN SAID TAILSTOCK AND SAID CARRIAGE AND PROVIDING ALTERNATIVELY FOR THE TAILSTOCK TO BE MOVABLE WITH THE CARRIAGE OR TO REMAIN IN ENGAGEMENT WITH THE BLANK WHILE THE CARRIAGE MOVES DURING THE WORKING OPERATION; AND A FLUID PRESSURE RESERVOIR MOUNTED ON SAID CARRIAGE AND HAVING CONNECTIONS WITH EACH OF SAID FLUID PRESSURE MEANS. 